Daily Dose 1828

Abelardo Morell

Daily Dose Monographic Images 1282 | Abelardo Morell "I arrived in New York City in 1962 with my parents, my sister and a cousin after leaving Cuba as exiles. My father got a job as a Super taking care of five buildings on West 69th Street. One of them had to be heated with a big coal boiler which had to be fed manually. Winters were especially hard on my father but, all in all, we made do with what we had and were all fairly happy to be living in such a great city. For me, especially as a young immigrant, New York was a very important and instructional model showing the dynamics of power, change and ambition in this new country of mine. I knew then that we would never return to Cuba. Soon after settling down I bought a Brownie camera with money I made at a corner pharmacy delivering prescription medications to people. Not all the black & white negatives from that time survived but here are some that made it and which I still like. Looking at these juvenilia has made me realize that photography obviously interested me pretty early on as a way to document and deal with the radically changing world around me. Walking around with this Brownie made me feel unique and individual in a topsy-turvy time of my life." The pictures are purposely not displayed in their chronological order, they range from 1962 to 2005. Thanks to Leon Faust.